TOM Cruise is hoping his Hollywood clout can reverse what he and fellow Scientologists see as a hostile attitude toward the group in Germany.

While in Berlin promoting “Vanilla Sky” with lover and co-star Penelope Cruz, the superstar lobbied the U.S. ambassador to fight for the group’s rights.

Germany refuses to recognize Scientology as a church, saying it masquerades as a religion to make money, and Scientologists are barred from government jobs in some parts of the country.

Embassy officials told Reuters that Cruise met with Ambassador Dan Coats, a former U.S. senator, in Berlin for more than an hour last week, passionately appealing for his support in improving the organization’s status.

After meeting Coats, Cruise spent nearly an hour signing autographs and talking to a star-struck embassy staff, who described him as unusually friendly and patient.

Coats later attended a special screening of “Vanilla Sky.”

The embassy spokesman refused to say anything more about the actor’s meeting with the ambassador.

Germany’s government placed Scientology under official scrutiny in 1997, provoking an outcry among supporters in the United States, who claim Germany’s refusal to recognize Scientology undermines their human rights.

The California-based Church of Scientology was founded on the teachings of the late American sci-fi writer L. Ron Hubbard.

Hubbard’s teachings have lured several high-profile Hollywood film stars, including John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, Priscilla Presley and Cruise, who embraced it in 1990 through his first wife, Mimi Rogers.

In the January issue of Vanity Fair, Cruise credited his 13-year devotion to Scientology with helping him deal with adversities from dyslexia to his estrangement from his late father to persistent rumors that he is gay.